Katharine has a red satellite transmitter attached to her dorsal fin. The celebrity predator has generated media coverage across the Sunshine State as satellite "pings" track her trek along the East Coast. She even boasts her own Twitter handle, @Shark_Katharine, and more than 1,300 followers.

"Definitely not a common inhabitant to our local environment," said Jonathan Shenker, Florida Tech associate professor of biological sciences. "We've got a lot of toothy guys out there - but great whites aren't one of them.

"I'm just sitting here fascinated about her movements and watching what she'll do next. If she shows up off South Beach Miami, I'm sure you'll see a lot more media attention if she starts cruising the beaches."

Katharine was captured and tagged Aug. 19 off of Cape Cod, Mass., by OCEARCH. The organization has tagged about 150 sharks since 2007, and its researchers are tracking about 40 transmitter-equipped great whites, tigers, hammerheads and other species off the Atlantic Coast, Africa and South America.

An immature female, Katharine measured 14-feet, 2-inches. She was named for Katharine Lee Bates, the Cape Cod songwriter who wrote "America the Beautiful," and her transmitter emits a signal when her dorsal fin breaks the water's surface.

Katherine passed New Smyrna Beach on Friday and approached Canaveral National Seashore by nightfall.

After cruising off Cape Canaveral this weekend, Katharine continued southward. Detected at 12:38 p.m. Sunday roughly 20 miles offshore from Cape Canaveral, she pinged again at 7:27 a.m. Monday, 20-plus miles offshore from Sebastian Inlet.

Then she struck for the inlet - pinging at 5:01 p.m. Monday about 4,000 feet offshore from Sebastian Inlet State Park.

From there, Katharine swam Tuesday to Port St. Lucie, her southernmost destination since she was tagged. Total distance traveled since that date: 3,686 miles.

Though spinner, blacktip and bull sharks are more-familiar species along the Space Coast, Katharine's appearance is not unusual, said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida.

Between January and May, Burgess said, the carnivores pursue North Atlantic right whales as they migrate off the coasts of northeast Florida and southern Georgia.

"Not coincidentally, white sharks will happily munch on a sick or slow whale - or even better, a calf. They're along to move the Darwinian evolution forward," he said.

"She's in her prime. She's probably in her late teens, early 20s. We don't know whether she's sexually mature or not. It'll be really interesting to see if Katharine returns to Cape Cod later this summer. If she does, then she probably didn't get pregnant. If she does not return to Cape Cod by July, then she's likely pregnant," Fischer said.

Katharine's Twitter account is maintained by a member of OCEARCH's social media team. Recent first-person tweets included a reference to the SyFy movie "Sharknado," self-depreciating jokes about her weight, and directives to #ReplaceFearWithFacts.

Despite their ferocious man-eating reputation, no confirmed great white attacks on humans have occurred in Florida waters. Sharks kill about five people a year worldwide, Burgess said.